Today's News

When voters go to the polls for the June 12 party primaries, there will be more than just candidates to consider as nominees for the November general election.
Both major parties also will be asking voters to weigh in on a handful of non-binding “advisory” referendums.

A cluster of suspension-rattling streets west of downtown Lancaster will be bustling with construction in 2019, as the S.C. Department of Transportation resurfaces them.
At the same time, the city will consider making water and sewer repairs there while the roads are torn up, according to City Administrator Flip Hutfles.

It looks like a small residential tract in the northern end of the Panhandle will be rezoned as commercial, despite vocal objections from adjacent property owners, a 300-signature petition against it and a unanimous no vote by the county planning commission.
County council voted 6-1 to approve first reading of owner Linda Faulkner’s request to rezone the property at 9843 Calvin Hall Road. Council member Terry Graham cast the dissenting vote.

The woman who was wounded in last Thursday's fatal Kershaw shooting has been identified and arrested.

Jody Linn Holt, 30, of Kershaw, was arrested at the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office Thursday and has been charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana and unlawful neglect of a child.

Holt and Vincent Barry Lambert Jr. were both shot on Pine Ridge Drive in Kershaw May 10 with their 4-year-old son in the backseat. Holt was severely injured, and Lambert did not survive. The child was unhurt.

The Lancaster County school board had a busy meeting Tuesday night, voting unanimously to raise prices for student lunches and athletic-event tickets and to change the elementary school grading period to nine weeks.
All athletic tickets will go up $1, across the district, for the 18-19 school year. Coaches originally asked for a $2 raise, but settled with the district on a $1 increase.
According to school officials at the meting, coaches need more money to support their teams, and raising ticket prices would help them meet that goal.

The front of Lancaster’s Walmart has become a construction zone, as the company gears up to test the idea of far more self-checkout lanes and far fewer that use cashiers.
Red tape occupies the area where multiple checkout lines used to be at the front of the store, and new banks of self-checkout stations are being installed at both of the front exits.
“It’s a select group of stores that are testing out what works best for the customer,” said Walmart corporate spokesman Ragan Dickens. “It’s part of our front-end renovation process.

Two more teens have been arrested in last Thursday’s fatal Kershaw shooting, bringing to three the total number charged in the case.
Ka’Darius Aintwayn Kirkland, 19, and Brennan Jamil Patterson Jr., 17, have been charged with murder in the death of Vincent Barry Lambert Jr. and two counts of attempted murder, according to the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office.

Barry Faile has been named the state’s 2018 Sheriff of the Year by the S.C. Sheriffs’ Association.
Faile has been Lancaster County sheriff for nine years and has worked for the sheriff’s office since 1989, when he began his career as a patrol deputy. He worked his way up through the ranks, serving in every part of the department’s operation.
The award drew praise from other leaders in Lancaster’s law enforcement community.

Big smiles, back pats and tributes filled the Gregory Family YMCA on Thursday as scores of Lancaster’s business and civic leaders came to christen the county’s first Y and honor the renovated building’s namesake, C.D. “Bubber” Gregory Jr.
The crowd celebrated the new partnership between the Upper Palmetto YMCA and USC Lancaster.
“This facility is a community facility. It has meant so much to so many people over the years,” said Don Gardner, the Gregory Family YMCA’s development associate.

The Lancaster News won eight awards, including three first places, in the annual competition among the 83 newspapers owned by Landmark Community Newspapers Inc.
First-place honors went to reporter Reece Murphy for his four-day October series on the accelerating opioid crisis. The series also took the top award for news series in the S.C. Press Association’s competition in March.
The other first-place awards went to reporter Gregory A. Summers for feature writing and to design team leader Athena Redmond for general page design.